The Declaration Of The State Of Biafra By Colonel Ojukwu

Brief Biography

 

  Ojukwu was the son of a wealthy Igbo businessman, after graduating from the University of Oxford in 1955, he returned to Nigeria to serve as an administrative officer. After two years, however, he joined the army and was rapidly promoted thereafter. In January 1966 a group of largely Igbo junior army officers staged a coup that overthrew the civilian government, due to the somewhat unsuccessful coup d'etat the junior officers were forced to hand over power to the highest ranking military officer, Maj.Gen.T.U. Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi who then appointed Lieut.Col.Ojukwu as the Military Governor of Eastern Nigeria. However Hausa and Yoruba army officers were scared of a government dominated by the Igbo, therefore in January 1966 northern officers staged a successful counter-coup in which Lt.col Yakubu Gowon was installed as the new Head of State. Ojukwu still retained his position as governor of Eastern Nigeria, but a rising tide of ill-feelings against the Igbo by northerners was already causing large-scale massacres of Igbo in the North.

The Declaration Of The State Of Biafra

  Ojukwu In an attempt to put an end to the crisis, invited the Supreme Military Council to a meeting in Aburi, Ghana in order to find a solution to the rising crisis. Initially the council agreed to Ojukwu's plan of setting up a confederation, but instead Gowon initiated a unitary government and immediately alienated the Igbo by separating the non-igbo also known as minorities in the east through the declaration of twelve states, six of which belonged to this minorities. Ojukwu succumbed to the mounting pressure from his fellow Igbo by declaring the secession of the Eastern region from Nigeria, below is his famous speech on May 30, 1967.

"Fellow countrymen and women, you,     the people of Eastern Nigeria:

Conscious of the supreme authority of Almighty God over all mankind, of your duty to yourselves and property;

Aware that you can no longer be protected in your lives and in your property by any government placed outside Eastern Nigeria;

Believing that you are born free and have certain inalienable rights which can be preserved by yourselves;

Unwilling to be unfree partners in any association of a political or economic nature; Rejecting the authority of any person or persons other than the Military Government of Eastern Nigeria to make any imposition of whatever kind upon you;

Determined to dissolve all political and other ties between you and the former Federal Republic of Nigeria; prepared to enter into such association, treaty of alliance with any sovereign state within the former Federal Republic of Nigeria and elsewhere on such terms and conditions as best to subserve your common good;

Affirming your trust and confidence in me; Having mandated me to proclaim on your behalf, and in your name that Eastern Nigeria be a sovereign independent republic. Now therefore I, lieutenant Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, Military Governor of Eastern Nigeria, by virtue of the authority and pursuant to the principles recited above, do hereby solemnly proclaim that the territory and region formerly known as and called Eastern Nigeria together with her continental shelf and territorial waters shall henceforth be an independent sovereign state of the name and title of the Republic of Biafra. And I do declare that: All political ties between us and the Federal Republic of Nigeria are hereby totally dissolved."